Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => Player Driven Content => Topic started by: Rhiannon on 29 May 2012, 21:39
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In the wake of Scherezad's miniature story event, it got me thinking...
First, that organizing IC reasons to go fighting other corps or specific people in corps besides "We hate them! FIRE!" is extremely awesome.
Second, holy crap a reason to get roleplayers to do roleplaying in space.
And third, how can we have this happen more often?
As a disclaimer I recognize that it may be that some folks actually do quite a lot or close to all of their roleplay in space. Its simply that from my perspective, most roleplay is done through chat windows among corp members, rather than out in space against or in tandem with other corps. If I'm wrong I'd be happy to be corrected, but the following thoughts are from the assumption that this is all largely true, if not entirely.
After chatting a bit with Scherezad and Norrin Ellis we came to the conclusion that this should be rectified, but that there are several things that keep it from happening more often.
During Scherezad's Rescue there were five people organized to form the "opposition" to the rescue. Apparently, none of them showed up. I don't know what their actual reasons for not being there are, but assuming it was a deliberate choice and not because of inconvenience or so on, I think I have some ideas for why.
In my time on particular RP worlds, it was not uncommon for the players playing various flavors of villians to feel outnumbered, outgunned, and at times deliberately set up to fail by the DMs organizing or overseeing events. And it is very demoralizing, as you may have guessed, particularly for those players that tried their darndest to play nuanced, realistic, and intelligent villains rather than a run-of-the-mill mook. Granted this was in a fantasy setting, where Good and Bad are often much more established and it is Understood that Good Triumphs Over Evil. But EVE is none of those things. It is morally ambiguous and the closest thing we have to any concrete 'sides' are Lawful versus Chaos or Unlawful.
The only idea we've come up with so far is Scherezad's, and the idea is basically this: Have the involved parties agree OOC beforehand to reimburse one another's ship costs. I don't know how well that might work. I cannot even begin to fathom the possible complications or problems that might involve. But its a start.
[Edit: See below for very good reasons why not.]
Frankly I just want to see more corps getting into tussles for IC reasons besides disagreeing with each other. I want to see IC conflict happen in more places and in more ways than in little chat channels while we spin our ships.** And I want very much for IC conflict to have consequences, but I just don't know how far it can or should go.
Some other things:
When initiating or setting up a story arc, it may be good to establish some other player as a mediator for disputes, that has no stake in the outcome of the story arc itself. The 'power' this mediator has can only be enforced by the players involved.
When trying to roleplay in-person combat, it can often be nerve-wracking for both sides as we all fear our opponent will in some way or another, in some varying degree, godmode and completely invalidate anything we try to do. In large part I avoid this problem simply by only engaging in this form of roleplay with players I trust to be reasonable and discuss with me about how the scene may or may not play out, based on things our characters will not or may not know, but we do. This of course requires that the players have a very strong sense of IC/OOC divide, to avoid metagaming as much as possible. I suggested perhaps using browser-based RNG, but I don't know how well such a thing might work in the EVE IG browser. There's also the simple fact that there is very little to go on to figure out what decides success or failure and what skills might apply to various things and by how much.
*Player Initiated Story Arc. If you have a suggestion for a better term, I'd love to hear it
**Sometimes its ship spinning, sometimes its doing any number of things In Space while we pretend to be sipping tea in-person on a planet or station on the other side of the cluster. Its immersion breaking, but maybe only if anybody else notices.
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The only idea we've come up with so far is Scherezad's, and the idea is basically this: Have the involved parties agree OOC beforehand to reimburse one another's ship costs. I don't know how well that might work. I cannot even begin to fathom the possible complications or problems that might involve. But its a start.
I will do my best to answer this in the spirit of avoiding "you're doing it wrong", and please dont take it as such, but please no.
A thousand times no.
EVE is about consequence. Its what makes this game special to me. What happens in space matters. It takes guts to do something, to risk something, in this game.
What you propose might create more RP drama, but it would rip the heart out of what makes EVE truly special, in my eyes. Roleplay in EVE would be simple kabuki theatre, just sound and fury.
EVE should have consequences. RP in EVE should have consequences. RP in EVE doesnt need more empty drama calories. It needs feuds and rivalries and meaningful conflict. It needs contests and conspiracies. And yes, it needs more RPers willing to engage in conflicts that are real, and that hurt.
I suppose I could see why some people might want to do what you're proposing. But, in my eyes, it takes away any chance to make RP in EVE truly special, to truly take advantage of what this game offers.
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A bit "What Gottii said", and a bit "Can you tell us about Schere's miniature story event? Maybe I'm misunderstanding something."
If you want war games and training exercises, have war games and training exercises IC. You can even use the simulator (SiSi) for them, if you prefer, then meet up afterwards for analysis and genial insults.
If you want incidents of adventure and derring-do, go out there and do stuff. Make it happen. Ideally, avoid "I did something dumb and now need to be roleplay rescued" tropes: there are enough real rescues where you need to help people get ships out of hostile space that made-up ones get old quickly.
Choices have consequences. Reputation matters. Trust is earned--even if it turns out to have been misplaced--not agreed to in advance according to rules.
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I'm going to echo Gottii and Matariki's sentiments, I think. Doesn't it lend more weight to the RP when ships that explode aren't reimbursed by the enemy?
It's easy for some groups to become outnumbered fairly quickly, as you say, and TS-F experienced this quite a while back; we figured, however, that to impose artificial restrictions such as "only fight in such-and-such classes of ships in such-and-such numbers" would make the conflict seem forced and a good deal less immersive. I don't see how the enemy paying the other side for the destruction they cause has a different outcome.
Corporations going to war or fighting in low-sec for RP reasons, I can get behind. At risk of sounding a bit like "urdoinitrong", though, I'd seriously be worried if I saw many more arcs in the vein of what I've heard of Scherezad's. It worked to get people doing things, but you don't need kidnapping and drama (let's not get into the ridiculous notion of capsuleers being kidnapped) to cause people to shoot each other. Examples of motivators that don't degenerate into soap opera might be:
- One corporation starts doing things in the territory of another; the second wants them to stop. I mentioned an idea based around cans being anchored a while back that would work here.
- Corporation A discovers, perhaps through RP means, that Corporation B is up to something unsavoury. It'd very much like them to stop that; fighting ensues.
- The age-old "Corporation A supports people Corporation B finds distasteful; B shoots A to try and stop them aiding this group / break their will and pull them away fro it / a hundred other reasons"
There are many more -- and most of them almost certainly better than those I came up with in a couple minutes' thought -- but it at least illustrates what I'm trying to convey, hopefully.
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Echoing previous posters:
It's good you're actually doing something in space with RP. Actually no, it's sodding fantastic, not enough people do it these days and I'd love to see more of it. Reimbursing ship costs after non-practice fights is a bad idea though.
EVE is largely about Risk vs Reward, and this filters down into RP as well. During ANSH's campaign in Placid, we popped a few folks in and around the system, and people popped us back (Not often, I hasten to add) Losing ships and ISK was a blow to morale, but getting kills was a huge lift, as you feel like you've achieved something.
(Heck, you have. If your opponents don't know when to cut their losses and back out, everything that happens as a result is their fault.)
The most I'd do along this vein is sell people's drop back to them at market price if I were feeling particularly sympathetic. There were concerns about hard feelings OOC on both sides, but I'd hazard these were due largely to a lack of OOC communication between parties.
IC drama is alright in moderation, but ideally you want something you'd see popping up in the news here (http://www.arcadianewsnetwork.net/). EVE RP has, in recent months moved towards nothing but drama, and I'm struggling to get my fix of political wrangling and non-magic-sleeper conspiracy I used to have.
If you're interested in bouncing ideas around for some kind of IC, In-space event, give me a shout. I'm keen to get the ball rolling again.
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Your analysis sounds definitly right to me. I am reserved on some of the conclusions (ship reimbursement) but otherwise, I agree.
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In short:
Scherezad spear-headed an RP storyline that involved her getting kidnapped and people organizing to rescue her. Research was done, interrogations, lots of planning and coordinating.
Schere organized an opposing "force" (her kidnappers) with other players and after the group searching for her mobilized and located the fluid router signals and chips to isolate her position, the group tracked her down and forcibly extracted her form her captor's vessel.
All in all, the RP involved a great deal of talking, planning and flying in space. It was a great deal of fun, to be sure, but the best part was the realization that we could fail, lose our ships and have to lick our wounds.
This also isn't the kind of RP that you're going to see every day because it requires a great deal of coordination, cooperation between players and someone taking the risk of appearing to be a drama-llama to get things going. It's fun to have things like this occasionally, but not all the time.
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I really don't think that reimbursements were in the cards, anyways. We lost one ship, and I think Seriphyn reimbursed the pilot in question, but it certaintly didnt come out of Leopold's pocket.
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As to the event, and to assauge Kyber's hatred of any plot involving kidnapping Capsuleers, IC it is probably best to consider it less of a rescue (she certaintly wasn't in a tower, chained to a post, or anything.) but more of a retrieval mission. Scherezad's handlers wanted her body back, because shes got several experimental and expensive implants, and getting her back would -just happen- to also include getting Scherezad back (though that wasn't even far from guaranteed).
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I think it was an excellent proof-of-concept. Well done to Scherezad for going out of their way to organize it all. I had a lot of fun flying with people and lolFCing folk I never thought I'd be in fleet with ever (like tiberious lol). Also, chatting and being laid-back over fleet voice does a lot to build a sense of community with other RPers, even with those on the opposing faction.
As for kidnapping/retrieval/rescue, well, it's a first for the OOC/Summit crowd like, in a long time (certainly a first for me ever). Like I mentioned, a 'proof-of-concept. If this can happen more often, other arcs can be done, maybe, of other genres. Optimally, we want less cross-faction banding together and more opposing faction stuff. I OOC sacrificed my character's IC principles for the sake of building up EVE RP and so on. Given how small we are these days, there's no choice in the matter; if we strictly stuck to our factions there'd be 1 per bloc lol.
And yeah, Astrid lost a Jaguar when I was deciding whether we should try and blow up Leo and someone else (thanks for joining btw!) or extract with Sch's body. I threw them 50mil for that. This was in-character, of course. There was no OOC reimbursements.
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Well, I thought it was enjoyable, even with my participation consisting almost entirely in the FiS part.
( And I'd gladly have lolFC'd, too, if only my EVE voice wouldn't have rebelled so horribly. "Inhonores, you scout ahead." - "But I'm in a Talos" - "Exactly. It's called bait." )
It certainly showed that even throwing a small event is a lot of effort. And yes, I agree with the 'community building' aspect of the little fleet we had together.
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Echoing sentiments that this is an awesome show of what is possible, but also that more pro-active, non-consensual rp violence is needed desperately. My sensibilities would warn me off of an arranged rp even as it is in my IC and OOC nature to seek advantage - arranged events mean that is set in stone, likely at a rate I'd find unacceptable personally.
More of this would be fantastic, but we need to start tearing one another apart based on real IC rivalries. It is almost as if there is a fear that IC violence will bleed into OOC arguments and epeening, which should only happen with the weakest and least mature of us. I think we can all agree that more trial by fire such as this would be good for the generation of a healthy community.
In short, more of this, more spontaneity and more consequences! Too long has the scourge of hangar RP plagued us.
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I dont know, we almost exclusively shoot at RPers (and the pirates who infest the low-sec we have co-opted!).
We roam around a bit, but that's usually preceeded by "Is there anyone, RPwise, we want to shoot at who is available within the effort we are wanting to put in today (who won't stomp all over us guaranteed)?"
If the answer is no, then and only then is when we go poking through fac-war space or elsewhere.
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I should specify that when I say Scherezad "arranged" the opposition, I mean that she attempted to get other players involved on the "captors" side and keep the fleets as even as possible so it'd be a fun, enjoyable and at least mostly fair fight and not a one-sided stomp out.
It ended up not working as most of her villains bailed for various reasons, but it was fun to chase her around and RP trying to recapture her regardless.
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Its a nice idea, and the event sounds fun
But
Ultimately if RP is going to be at all relevent, then we simply cant rely on pre-planned staged events. I mean, I count at least 3 threads where people have a nice long chat about making wars and such. Honestly, talking about wars will get us nowhere, actually wardeccing people of IC ideological reasons will.
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Oh, I absolutely agree Nmaro, which is why I said that this sort of thing is nice once-in-a-while to help do things other than the usual "let's blow each other up" and a fun way to work with people normally considered your enemy.
It's not something you'll do all the time, but it's definitely nice here and there.
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The only downside to the 'Actually Wardec' people angle is that the current war system almost throws that away. If we wardec someone, for instance, we are hated enough that not only will people sign on for that persons defense, but they will try to stomp our faces in with overwhelming numbers. Sadly, not hard to do.
Still, if you wanted to wardec us, we are open to the possibility!
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I dont know, we almost exclusively shoot at RPers (and the pirates who infest the low-sec we have co-opted!).
The Toaster makes a profound statement, which can help any RPer out there! You dont have to have RP wars with just other RPers. Some of the most fun ive had RPing has been in wars and conflicts against non-RP alliances and corps.
Were they roleplaying per se? No, but who cares? They were pirating in the Republic, or some such, and thus their actions had real RP consequences, and an RP response.
There's a whole world out there in EVE, filled with people looking to shoot at your character. Just because they dont ramble on the IGS doesnt mean they cant be a fine enemy for an RP corp or alliance.
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A good compromise I've had over the years is to OOC hash our some 'broad strokes' like a reason for conflict and some collaborated 'setup' of an event or drama, and then afterwords stay as IC as possible and let the chips fall where they may. Eliminates a lot of issues, and OOC can be used as needed if one side takes too much of a beating.
Another useful method is to provide some ooc 'give and take' for plotting, in that one side gives up some IC freebies to the opponents for good PR and they agree to do a few similar things.
I'd also strongly suggest lowsec as a very useful tool for all of this in space in lieu of actual wardecs. You can shoot people freely and losing a few ships back and forth only helps things out plot wise.
I run into plenty of RPers in lowsec and it's usually been pretty good.
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Maybe I've misunderstood the new system, but the ally thing only comes into place if the defender requests assistance, and even then they have to accept the offers of help, right? That could lead to interesting loosely-joined alliances where some groups don't create an actual alliance IG but have mutual defense pacts, whether the aggressors are roleplayers or not.
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As one of the no-show villains I gotta say I feel really bad now for not coming out, especially since it sounds like the participants had a blast.
Cost of potential loss was not a big problem for me, I'll happily put a ship on the line for something like this. Unfortunately my week did get a bit busy and this got pushed to the back of my mind, temporarily moved my combat toon to 0.0, and I had no idea when things were actually occurring (which may have been noone's fault but my own anyway.) So oops and sorry. :(
Lots of good discussion in here for player-run stuff anyway, let's see some more developments like this one in the near future :)
And yes, that's the gist of the ally system Cas.
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Were the Seekers going to be some of the bad guys?
Cause oh god, I dont think we would have done well if that had been the case. You guys know what you are doing, and I am some schlub who only recently got out of a hulk.
:oops:
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Were the Seekers going to be some of the bad guys?
Cause oh god, I dont think we would have done well if that had been the case. You guys know what you are doing, and I am some schlub who only recently got out of a hulk.
:oops:
Would be a fair fight if you could get I-RED involved at the same time. We know what we're doing too. :D
Speaking of: both me and Simca were completely unable to attend because of OOC nullsec fleet responsibilities the night before. We still had a jumpclone timer. This is actually fairly frequent, so anything involving I-RED sorta needs some sort of warning or we simply can't attend fully half the time.
Yes, I was very mad I couldn't attend. I was pissed, because in-space RP is my absolute freaking FAVORITE, and I was prevented from attending.
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Just myself was the idea, which is far less scary for the heroes when the cultist badguy is outnumbered :X
But it still would have been opposition, and fun for all, and I'm sorry none of the other badguys showed for whatever reasons.
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Yeah. Leopold had some people ready to go apparently, but we took too long getting organized and some of them got bored apparently... We really didnt have a choice, because people who were wanting to get involved kept coming online, and then we had to wait for them to travel over from the whole universe.
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Yeah. Leopold had some people ready to go apparently, but we took too long getting organized and some of them got bored apparently... We really didnt have a choice, because people who were wanting to get involved kept coming online, and then we had to wait for them to travel over from the whole universe.
I think maybe that is where the OOC setup of the event might be best utilized if these events happen in the future. Letting everyone know ahead of time where to meet up so they can go ahead and get in position or at least get close would be good. As Kat mentioned we had JC timers so I knew I couldn't participate and didnt pay attention if such things were actually done. Also really sorry I missed it.